We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joe Fogle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Joe thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?
Since I grew up a fan of fantastic monsters of myth, legend and lore like Bigfoot, Mothman and the Loch Ness Monster and with those monsters being the main focus of my T-shirt brand, my name is a simple mashup of cryptozoology and tees/T-shirts. Thus Cryptoteeology was born!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
As a child of the 80s and 90s, I grew up with some fantastic forms of art, pop culture, movies, comic books and cartoons which spawned my interest and love of those things.
I was always drawing comic books and creating new characters and monsters since I was able to pick up a pencil. It was a given that I was going to pursue a career in art in some way so after I graduated high school, I studied Graphic Design and received an Associates Degree in Specialized Technology. My first graphic design job was for a local screen printing company where I worked at for 17 years until the pandemic slowed things down in that field.
During the pandemic, I found myself deep-diving into folklore, cryptozoology, ghost stories and legends from around the world and it rekindled my passion for these monsters that I loved growing up. With much more free time than I was used to, I was able to get a website up, some new social media pages and do some local art shows and festivals. Much to my surprise, things started to take off and, after some discussion with my family, I decided to pursue this full time. Cryptoteeology continues to grow each year.
Having worked in the clothing industry for so long, I knew enough about the inner workings and decided that I would focus on fun and unique original illustrations of my favorite cryptids and monsters but with the occasional homage and mashup to some of my favorite pop culture things. These illustrations can also be found on posters, trading cards, stickers, magnets and an ever-growing slew of items.
While I don’t find myself having one particular style the describes my work, many friends and customers say that it is my unique blend of retro and comic book illustration that stands out and that they always get excited or get a good laugh out of each new design. Seeing people crack a smile or get a good laugh out of my work is one of the joys that I will never take for granted. I want people to have fun with and share in the joy of what I put out there into the world.
Being an artist and being able to make a full-time living doing so is hard work but I am only able to do so because of the people that support me and my business. I tell people all the time that I’m just out here having fun and spreading my weird sense of art and humor to the unexpecting. If I can get that one person to crack a smile and brighten their day, if only for a moment, then that’s something to be proud of.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I was working as a graphic designer at the same place for 17 years and, while I loved what I did, I never felt that I was where I wanted or needed to be but I had no idea what it was that I wanted or where I would be without that job.
Presented with the opportunity to do something else after the pandemic, I expanded upon something that I used to do years before and that was conventions and vendor shows. I never thought that this would amount to something because my previous efforts with my self-published comic books never took off like I had hoped but I scheduled a few shows, got some initial prints for Cryptoteeology and took to the road to promote and sell my new line of shirts.
The response to this new thing that I created was unbelievable and I decided that I needed keep going with this to see where it goes or else I would regret it for the rest of my life.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Traveling around from show to show comes with its own sets of ups and downs. You never know how you’re going to do at each show and early on there were some shows that tested my resolve and made me question my new career choice. Thankfully, the good outweighed the bad and the bad was few and far between compared to the positive things that happened early on. I learned to be more confident in my work than I had ever been before in my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cryptoteeology.com/
- Instagram: Cryptoteeology
- Facebook: Cryptoteeology
- Twitter: Cryptoteeology
Image Credits
BridgePerspective